Both Minnesota and Nevada took the lead in their respective leagues very early in the season and never relinquished it. In the American League the Twins were never seriously threatened by the other clubs and clinched the AL pennant in mid-September. In the National League the Dusters remained comfortably in front of the challengers throughout, though they did not clinch the NL pennant until the first week of October due to a strong finish by the second-place Cincinnati Reds (103-59). 1942 was the last year in which the # 1 teams in both leagues won over 100 games; that year, The St. Louis Cardinals went 106-48 while the New York Yankees finished with a 103-51 record. Minnesota's 113 wins and Nevada's 112 were the most victories by a club in the 20th century since the 116 victories achieved by the 1906 Chicago Cubs. But because teams played fewer games in the "old days" the winning percentages of the Twins (.698) and the Dusters (.691) were surpassed by a number of previous teams -- The Pittsburgh Pirates of 1902 (110-42) had a .724 winning percentage, the Yankees in 1927 (110-44) a .714 mark, the Phillies of 1931 (107-45) had a .704 percentage, the Yankees won .702 percent(106-45) of their games in 1939, and the Cleveland Indians went 111-43 in 1954 for a .721 percentage.

There was no denying that the two best teams in baseball were meeting for the 1963 World Series. Yet only one player-- Eddie Mathews -- had ever played in a Fall Classic. Someone who would not play at all was Minnesota pitcher Lee Stange, out for months with a torn knee ligament. Still, the baseball pundits predicted that the Twins would win the Series. And, ironically, the oddsmakers in Las Vegas were favoring Minnesota over the home team. The predictions ranged from a five- to seven-game series. The edge in pitching was given to the Dusters, with its first-rate bullpen and Cy Young Award candidate Steve Barber (24-4). But the Twins had the sluggers -- Eddie Mathews with 41 home runs, Don Mincher with 43, Harmon Killebrew with 41 and Bob Allison with 33. The Nevada home run leader was second baseman Jerry Adair with 26, while left fielder Billy Williams had 23. No one else on the team had more than 20. Did good pitching beat good hitting? Or vice versa? The conventional wisdom was that the Twins would score more runs.